names:
i have been working for a few months on names, before we even got pregnant. i finally showed my list to hubby this week. he didn't like ANY of them! wah :( so we bouncing names back and forth, like ping pong players. i have not decided if i want to tell everyone what we pick before she is born or not...
Hair Braiding:
in September of last year i went to Renaissance Fest. i have really, really long hair (past my butt), and can never find comfortable ways to keep it up off my neck. When ever i happen to go somewhere there is a hair braider, i get it braided. That time i was pregnant and could not help thinking how great it would be to have my hair up in braids (OFF MY NECK) during labor, and also look pretty (instead of the frazzled mess it is in my other birth photos). So when we came back to Austin my husband found a local gal who braids.
she had to come out a few times (due to my many bouts of false labor), but she was very affordable and each time the braids lasted a good 3-6 days.
I had her come out one more time the day of the funeral. i wanted my hair to be beautiful for my daughter. then when i came home i took it down and covered my hair. i did not uncover it in front of anyone (even my kids) for 6 weeks.
here are pictures
Views on homebirth:
ahh that is a tough one! Yes, my views are totally different now. totally. I had three homebirths, one ended in dead baby, who would have lived in the hospital. it turned out like Russian roulette for me. the third time i lost. When i post my full birth story you will see way more about it, but if considering a homebirth-keep these things in mind.
-How compintent is your midwife- really? anyone can deliver a baby when things are going right, it really is not that hard. But, what about when things go really, REALLY wrong? How assured in her skills is she? how many births has she been to? Ob's have seen THOUSANDS, not a few hundrend. for my particular complication-placental abruption - it only happens in 1 out of 200 births. it takes a lot of experience to recognize and act swiflty in an emergency.
- How far away is the hospital- really?
mine was 3 minutes away, yet once we started to go, to getting to the car took 30 minutes. traveling while having nonstop contractions is not fast going. neither is traveling while hemorrhaging, having a baby's head out, but shoulders stuck, having a baby's whole body delivered but head trapped. The reasons you would need a hospital are not the situations in which you have time, and they are not situations which make it easy to do something fast.
and lets talk hemorrhaging. did you know you can bleed to death in 8 minutes? a shot of pictocin in your leg, or some shepards purse is not going to do it. my hemorrhage, although not as bad as it could have been, required IV Pictocin, Methergin (sp?), and manual extractions of clots (none of which a midwife could have done). But hemorrhages can be worse, much worse.like they have to take out your uterus in a crash c-section worse..or you might just die. And , don't count on the EMS to save you. the EMS who came to us did not carry even pictocin, and had NO IDEA how to even massage a uterus, much less manage my bleeding in any other way.
So, i no longer "trust birth". and i really hope that people who read or hear my story think very long and hard about where and with whom they choose to birth.
on a side note, i am still all for midwives (working with OBs) in the hospital. Kiryn was delivered in the hospital with a midwife. the reason i switched to homebirths is that the hospitals here stopped having midwives in them (all of them).
7 comments:
*hug* I only had one attempted hb, and my daughter is permanently disabled as a result. I don't blame the stroke she had on trying to have a hb, but laboring for days before transferring did not help her. And as much as I loved my midwife, she missed warning signs, the biggest being that my fundal height never passed 37 weeks, even though I went 11 days overdue. But midwives are trained for NORMAL birth, not things like prenatal stroke (which is extremely rare) So since her heart rate was fine, she just assumed that it was normal. Well, it wasn't. She was only 6 lbs 10 ozs when she was born, compared to 8.6 and 8.9 for my other post dates babies.
You simply can't predict who's going to STAY low risk and who's not. No matter how low risk a woman seems, it can change instantly. Furthermore, a low risk mom DOES NOT equal a low risk baby!
It's not that I'm anti-homebirth, but women who haven't been there don't really understand how quickly and dramatically things can go wrong. I love the idea of hb, but not enough to risk it again.
I love your hair, btw! I love long hair, but dh hates it to be past my shoulders, so I keep it fairly short.
I pray for you and your little girl a lot.
Liz, I have followed your story and am so moved by your strength and bravery. I am a labor and delivery nurse and have seen devastating losses as a result of home birth midwives who have not carefully screened for high risk or simply missed obvious signs of problems. I feel most families who have a home birth term intrapartum loss are unable to speak out because of the incredible grief. I feel your story is critical, although I am sure it hurts every time you must tell it.
Thank you for your willingness to speak out.
I believe home birth can be safe, but it takes constant surveillance and a vigilance and risk screening currently not practiced by most US home birth midwives. I hope we can move as a country, or state by state, to closer regulation and oversight of direct entry midwives coupled with carefully constructed standards of practice.
Your message is an important one to consider in the evolution of birth practice. I thank you and wish you the very best.
I want to thank you for speaking out about the dangers of turning birth into a religion where belief and trust is enough to prevent you from having a catastrophic outcome. Some of the attitudes out there about the risks in birth are frightening. And thank you for working to have your ex-midwife's license revoked.
I've had 3 home births, including some hefty complications, and I know very much how badly things could have gone with a midwife who didn't know enough. There are no do-overs, and a midwife missing things (or not even listening to see if there's something wrong) can prove disastrous within hours or even minutes.
On the PPH side, that is something I've encountered (in TX actually) and we did have 2 rounds of pit and 1 round of methargine, and manual removal of clots from the cervix. Did your ex-midwife not offer that?
Liz, I followed you over here from Skeptical OB (hope you don't mind!). I am so, so sorry for the loss of your daughter. Thank you for your courage in speaking out on the dangers of homebirth. You are an admirable woman and mother in so many ways.
I live in the Austin area, too, and I thought you might be interested to know there is one OBGYN practice at St. David's North Austin Medical Center that has CNMs on staff. The OB that owns the practice is named Christina Sebyesten. I have no experience with her, but people seem to like her.
jholmes- no, to keep it short my midwife did not offer that. please come back and read my birth story. i will be posting it after the 21st of june.
julie-
dr.Sebyesten would not see me, due to my baby dying in a homebirth. she sits on the midwifery review board, so she saw it as a conflict of interests.
But, it is ok, as i am LOVING the OB i am going to (dr swenson) she is too great.
Liz, Dr. Swenson is my OB, too! She is outstanding. She delivered my son in 2008 ... one reason I have been following your story is that my placenta partially abrupted during my son's birth, and the whole experience was the most frightening of my life. But from the moment it happened until my C section, only 7 minutes passed and Dr. Swenson delivered a perfectly healthy son to me and my husband.
I have been reading about your anxiety and nightmares, so I wanted you to know that your OB was my OB in a similar situation, and all turned out fine. I am due with my 2nd baby a month after you, and of course I am using her again! ((HUGS))
Hi Liz! It's Cheryl from the YMCA child watch. I found your blog through Melia's Facebook. God bless you and your family. Thank you for sharing your pain and joy. It's not the same thing, but I had a miscarriage in between Jaxon and Victoria and she was a preemie with the cord around her neck and not breathing for a while.
You have a very loving family and you will remain in my prayers.
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